Jaime King on How Her Squad Went Public

In the second part of her first column, Jaime King shares her advice for making your own girl gang.

What is a girl squad? From whence did they come? And why should we give a flock? All week long ELLE.com will be exploring the covenant of one of the trendiest forms of social currency: gal pals.

Jaime King, actress (films such Pearl Harbor and Sin City; TV shows such as Hart of Dixie), model (everything from Abercrombie to Chanel), wife, and mother (baby number two is on the way) has been in the limelight since she was 14. And after two decades in the industry, the 36-year-old multihyphenate is ready to speak out about the obstacles women face in and out of the industry—frombody shaming to online abuse. In Xo, Jaime, a new, bimonthly column for ELLE.com, King will break down how and why these issues should change. In part two of her inaugural column, King talks about how her and Taylor Swift's squad went public, her advice for making healthy, girl gang-worthy friendships, and what we can do to make things better for women everywhere. Catch up on part one of her column here.

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When you hear "squad, squad, squad," that word came up at the Golden Globes when Taylor Swift and I decided that we were going to go to the Golden Globes because our friends Lorde and Lena Dunham were nominated. We were like, "You know what? We're just going to go as a squad. It's not about us. It's about supporting our friends. We're not going to do solo pictures; we're going to let our friends shine for their moment, and we're just going to go as one squad who loves each other." And that's where the word started happening.

People were frustrated because they were like, "We want pictures of everybody's fashion!" And we were just like, "Too bad! This isn't about fashion. This is about us supporting each other, supporting our friends that have made an incredible achievement."

But, truthfully, the "squad" mentality applies to both the red carpet and the office. It's about saying, "Hey! You know that project the other day? Are you nervous about it? Do you have a deadline? What is going on with you, and how can I help? Where are you stuck?" By helping your friends at work, you can start to break down the barriers of who's going to be the "favorite" in the boss's eye and diminish the cattiness that happens when you work in an office, on a film set, or even if you're a stay-at-home mom.

We're all dealing with the same thing. It may be in a different setting, but it's the same feeling.

When people are like, "Oh well, you guys are famous, so it's different…" It's not different. We don't come from famous families. We're just people going through the same experiences that everyone else is going through. I think that by publicly reconfirming that we all love each other, and want to support each other, other women will understand that they can have that, too.

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It's so hard to find healthy friendships when you're young. It's so hard. I still think about that to this day because sometimes it hits you and you're like, Holy crap! I'm giving so much to this person, yet I feel so alone. There's a lot of friendships and relationships in which you give and you give and it's fine until, all of a sudden, it's not. All of a sudden you need them. You're really vulnerable and you're going through a break up or you're sick or you're going through something with your family—whatever trauma that you're going through. And you're like, Wait a second. Why is my friend not calling to ask me if I'm okay? Why are they not paying me a visit and coming over to see if I need anything? Why aren't they…? Even at 36 I experience that feeling.

It's very interesting because I have friends who are 15 and I have friends who are 50. We all have to create our own surrogate families because we all play different roles for each other. Some are the older sisters; some are the younger sisters. It just really varies.

But when you're in your twenties, the thing to look for in friendships is this: How is the other person living her life? What are her goals, her dreams? What is her routine like, and does it match mine? Is this person passionate about what they do?

You have to find liked-minded people. You also have to look for people who bring you joy. When you're around her, does she make you happy? Are you excited at the prospect of seeing this person?

These may seem like benign, stupid questions, but they're not. The biggest thing I always ask myself before anything is, Does this make me feel excited? If I'm being offered a job or I meet someone new, I always think about how I feel.

It's not easy living in the world today. There's so much stress; there's so much anxiety. Everybody is glued to their devices so we don't get that honest one-to-one interaction we crave. In the future I would love—if we start examining the media—to abandon things like Fashion Police, entertainment that's about women tearing each other down and getting joy out of that. More than anything, I would love to see women performing little acts of kindness for each other, standing by each other, and supporting each other.

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